LEGAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE IQMS
4.8 Prerequisites for and purpose of successful education
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situation in the world. These factors are however not the only requirements as one also has to take the relevance of the curriculum content into account.
Defining a good quality education proves to be more difficult than it appears. There are few who would disagree with the Dakar goals two and six under the Education for All (EFA) initiative which emphasize that universal education which is provided by governments should be of good quality.
The question which arises, however is what does quality education actually mean? Is there a universal understanding of the concept of good quality? Is the “quality” concept global in the sense that it should be understood in the same way everywhere in the world, that is, every country in the world?
Do those who live and teach in Cameroon or Chad have the same understanding of quality as those who live and teach in Canada? For example can an education system that lacks capacity and is not accessible to all learners claim to be an education system of high quality? If its capacity and outreach is limited and large groups of young people are denied access to any form of schooling, is it providing a quality education?
An attempt to find answers to these questions will be discussed in the following sections.
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poor social security structures and other support systems together with the growth in population, the growth in the informal production sector has in many instances compounded the problem.
Underfunded education systems thus seen in many developing countries are suffering from serious deficiencies in both quantity and quality. According to recent findings,in these countries: “Coverage is insufficient, access is inequitable and the quality of education is often poor, often information-based, teacher-directed rote learning provided within a formal education system governed by directives. Adult literacy rates are low, and too few children complete basic education” (World Bank 2003).
Another compounding factor other than the high birth rate, lack of formal tax base, poor economic growth and inadequate governance is the high death toll in educated groups due to HIV/AIDS and other serious diseases. These problems all hamper the significant efforts under the EFA and Millenium Goals initiatives aiming to improve the education inadequacies previously discussed.
The purpose of formal education always has been and probably always will be to promote learning, which is the process internal to the pupil or learner leading to the actual attainment of new values, norms, knowledge and skills.
Whether or not learning actually will take place, depends on several conditions, partly interconnected which have already been identified above and would also include the elements discussed below:
4.8.1 Learner motivation
The importance of teacher motivation has already been mentioned, but is clear that learner motivation is also a precondition for successful education. It is assumed that most participants in formal education have a general motivation for learning, since this is the sole expressed intention of them attending formal education programmes. They are there because they want to be there.
4.8.2 Teacher motivation and ability
Essentially successful education depends on the capacity of the teacher to organise teaching and to present the knowledge and skills. These should be transferred in a way that is able to stimulate the learners’ interest in the subject and makes it possible for the student to comprehend and learn. This basically has inter alia to do with the teacher’s professional enthusiasm, competence and proficiency.
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It also refers to teaching method qualifications in addition to access to necessary time, appropriate organisational framework and sufficient and good instructional equipment and materials.
4.8.3 Content of education must be relevant
The critical factor here is that the learner should be able to see the potential usefulness, the relevance of what is being taught, observed and experienced. If the content is perceived irrelevant to the learners and their own particular context, this will be demotivating and hence undermine learning effects. It would be difficult to argue for instance, that maritime education provided to the youth in landlocked countries such as Lesotho or Nepal represents high quality education, even if it strictly follows high international standards.
Likewise, most people would find it highly questionable if social studies in primary schools in Latin America or countries of the Southern African Development Countries were (primarily) concerned with history and current political and socio-cultural conditions in Europe or North America, rather than in their own country and region.
In further defining quality education then, additional explicit, measurable standards and criteria must be used as a global framework as discussed in the following section.
4.8.4 Common (standardized) content and standards
Education is a resource which is intended to be useful to the learners and it stands to reason therefore, that the content and standards of education must be related to their particular situation and the context in which the education is provided. This implies that education must take into account inter alia the needs and interests of the learner and other critical key stakeholders, the availability of natural resources and production structure as well as cultural/ political traditions and practices in a particular geographical region.
This means that standards as well as learning objectives, and also methods of curriculum delivery usually have to be decided upon at a national level. This could be extended to include regional level, such as the European Union or OECD level. These co-operation strategies have assisted member states to place their priorities in perspective and work towards common goals that will assist towards improving education delivery.
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The understanding of “quality education” might be a relativistic concept in that it means that content, approach to delivery and learning targets of quality education will invariably vary by inter alia geographic location, socio-cultural factors and the maturity of the education system. This makes the setting of global standards for the individual subjects and learning areas difficult to define, due mainly to the great differences among countries as far as economic and therefore educational needs are concerned.
As has been alluded to (European Union and OECD alliances), this does not imply, however, that countries in different parts of the world could not and should not learn from each other, even if they differ in culture, climate, education and technology levels. On the contrary: through the exchange of ideas and practical experiences on content and learning objectives, organization and teaching methods between countries, it is often found that these elements are adaptable to suit an individual country’s context. One of the effects of globalisation is that it creates the possible scenario that the increasing internationalisation could lead towards a greater uniformity of education worldwide.
The same principles as above apply to the application of national if not international/universal standards in education. This aspect will be discussed in section 4.8.5
4.8.5 National quality standards in education
Generally, quality standards are decided upon at a national level, and it is difficult to anticipate that these practices in the setting of these standards can be changed or will be achieved unless a quality standards framework can be based on a more scientific approach.
This could be achieved by using inter alia thorough and reliable needs-assessments of learners, communities, producers in various sectors and other stakeholders who are those who should benefit from the education that is offered in a particular country. Having stated that, it must be borne in mind, as was mentioned previously, that in a dynamic and fast changing world, national curricula need to be flexible in such a way that they could easily be adapted to local conditions and be in a position to readily respond to changes in technologies and markets.
Despite the formulation of excellent policies in education to implement quality standards for education, it is eventually in fact up to individual schools to determine these quality standards. This is because it is the actual performance of the educational institutions which will ultimately determine the learning
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outcomes. An important task for the education authorities therefore is to facilitate and support quality curriculum delivery at school level and to allocate and organise relevant resources and other framework conditions for these education institutions to perform at optimum level. This should also include the evaluation, training and development of teachers and management staff. On- site visits to assist and advise school personnel on scheduled meetings concerning performance standards is an essential element in the process.
It is apparent that universal standards of quality in education are likely to be difficult to achieve, however, it is possible to discuss at regional level common grounds for a way forward. Within the context of Sub Saharan Africa and other developing nations this could be achieved by the formation of alliances such as the European Union and OECD.
Policy formulators in each country have to specify relevant standards and curricula and then decide which aspects are common at a regional level and therefore decide on priorities and strategies that collectively can assist them to achieve agreed upon objectives.
Discussions on the previous pages have been quite general with observations and findings being applicable globally for both developed and developing countries. However, if the economic and social characteristics of developing countries are considered, there are likely to be specific challenges that these countries are facing that are anticipated to be less acute in industrialised and developed countries.
There are probably more specific competencies that education in developing countries should prioritise and implement for the improvement of their systems. Possibly the most important is paying attention to health and production which is discussed in the next section.
4.8.6 Health and production competency
There is undeniably a health crisis in Sub-Saharan countries. Whether this can be attributed to the crop failures in the production of garlic and beetroot harvests due to a lack of sustainable water supply, or whether it was the lack of skills of the workforce to repair sophisticated donor aided first world technology, without sustainable technical support, this scourge can largely be attributed to the inadequate education preparation within the system.
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These skills in any system would normally ensure that the aforesaid crops are ready to be harvested in order to solve all the social, economic and educational woes encountered by developing nations for the crops to be harvested in time to rescue the ailing communities and economies paramount to remedying the crisis.
In this context, one could argue that these governments have no option but to give particular priority to the development of health and production competencies of the learners, in order to break the vicious circle. Health education, comprising issues such as general hygiene, nutrition and prevention of serious diseases in most developing countries, is already being integrated into the curriculum at all levels.
International efforts to train personnel and strengthen education on these issues are massive and are being intensified.
The importance of promoting the production competencies of learners in developing countries is an area of focus that requires urgent attention. These competencies will comprise knowledge and skills that can be utilised for production in the relevant social and economic context, by the individual or group in question. The main objective will be to enable individuals to cover their own needs and possibly produce for local markets.
In this perspective vocational training, including agricultural education, will have a particularly important role, with a focus on knowledge and skills appropriate for the extraction and processing of local resources. However, this does not mean that the basic broad skills and other elements in general education should be ignored, as they are also relevant to income-generating activities which can be economy boosters.
Providing learners with entrepreneurial skills and competencies will be of particular importance in countries where there are few employment opportunities. The 2006 EFA Global Monitoring Report points out that an increasing number of governments recognize this and include enterprise as a compulsory or optional subject for all pupils and students in general and vocational education.
The report mentions that some African countries, including Kenya and Botswana, have integrated entrepreneurship training as an important element of the syllabus in order to stimulate the development of new, small income generating enterprises. These micro enterprises are particularly important providers of decentralised employment and income, thereby contributing to the maintenance and sustainable development of the local community.
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Having briefly explored the background of some of the many constraints which hamper education progress in developing countries, it is necessary to examine how more developed areas of the world are viewing their educational system.